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“Studies in Visual Arts and Communication – an international journal”Volume 10 – Nr 1, 2023 |
Table of Contents
June 2023; 10(1)
1. Ali Shobeiri
The Spatiotemporal City: Unveiling Time and Space in Metropolis
Studies in Visual Arts and Communication – an international journal / June 2023 10(1)
ABSTRACT
Since its very conception, the medium of photography has been registering the unfolding of time and space in the urban space. The thinkers of photography, however, not always had the same stance on how this spatiotemporal representation is conceived by the photographer and perceived by the spectator. In his well-commended photographic exhibition, called Metropolis (2016), Dutch photographer Martin Roemers has captured the quintessential time and space of diverse metropolises across the globe. Revitalizing the age-old photographic technique of long-exposure, his aim was to challenge the putative representation of time and space as being forever fixed in the frame. By focusing on the Metropolis photo series, this article examines how Martin Roemers’s use of long-exposure accounts for a paradoxical embodiment of time and space in the city. To this end, it first explores how theoreticians of photography, such as John Szarkowski, Geoffrey Batchen, and Roland Barthes, have pondered on the representation of time with respect to long-exposure. Next, by discussing the work of André Bazin and Christian Metz, it discusses how long-exposure can reveal and register a segment of the city space. Finally, by drawing on Walter Benjamin’s concept of “optical unconscious” and Michel de Certeau’s idea of “lived space”, this article proposes that Roemers’s photographs have manifested the spatiotemporal city: a simultaneously transient and fixed, still and moving, thus ephemeral yet eternal urban environment
Keywords: photography, spatial, temporal, city, Metropolis, long-exposure, lived space.
2. Patricia Kiss Spineli, Charles Morphy D. Santos
Portraying the Victorian Era: The “Charles Darwin” photograph by Julia Cameron
Studies in Visual Arts and Communication – an international journal / June 2023 10(1)
ABSTRACT
Until the beginning of the 20th century, portraits and landscapes were the main subjects of photographic capture. In the period, such themes were prevalent due to technical and ideological concerns. Photography was considered a mimesis of reality. In this sense, science started to use photographs to reinforce time and place features. The portraits made in the 19th century by Julia Cameron fit this context. She registered figures of the Victorian intelligentsia, reflecting in her work the vision of the British Empire as the land of geniuses and intellectually virile men. Here, we discuss the portrait of Darwin made by Cameron in 1868 based on the reasoning of Peircean semiotics and photographic language (especially lightning, composition, photograph format, subject expression and gestures), establishing a parallel between Darwin as a person and scientist and his iconic representation. Cameron’s portrait of Darwin employed lighting and composition to emphasize his intellect. Cameron’s portrait of Darwin strengthens the constructed perception of 19th-century British scientists as self-assured men, knowledgeable and authoritative, who wielded leadership in their era. This portrayal aligns with the British imperial perspective of the time, emphasizing control over speech, language, and power.
Keywords: photographic language, portrait, Peirce, semiotics, evolution.
3. Gustavo L. de Souza, Daniel F. B. de Oliveira
Romanticsm, the Gothic and the Middle Ages in Kentaro Miura’s Berserk
Studies in Visual Arts and Communication – an international journal / June 2023 10(1)
ABSTRACT
Kentaro Miura’s manga series Berserk (1989-present) is largely based on late medieval and Renaissance Europe, but its author relied on a much broader array of references, among which those related to Romanticism and the Gothic genre are of prime importance. Through published interviews with the author and comparisons between the manga’s panels and works of fiction, poetry and the visual arts, we seek to investigate the persistence of the Romantic and the Gothic traditions in Berserk. We argue that their imprint on the manga may be discerned in five main aspects: Berserk’s borrowings from the Romantic visual arts; its employing of vastness, repetition and uniformity in order to attain sublime effects; its affinity with the Gothic genre, whose macabre subjects and whose treatment of religion, cruelty and sexuality make its way into the manga; the Gothic and Romantic elements in its mythology; and its Romantic sentiment for nature. Some similarities between the manga and historical works point to direct and deliberate borrowings, resulting from the author extensive knowledge on Western art and academic background, while other similarities point to intermediate sources, which act as conduits between Miura and works of older periods. We conclude that the Japanese continuing of the Romantic and the Gothic traditions, exemplified by Berserk and other works, indicate that these traditions have kept their power to fuel creativity in contemporary culture and to shape our perceptions of the Middle Ages.
Keywords: Kentaro Miura, Berserk, Hellraiser, Romanticism, Gothic.
4. Paulo M. Barroso
Rhetoric of the image: contributions to a philosophy of photography
Studies in Visual Arts and Communication – an international journal / June 2023 10(1)
ABSTRACT
Photography is a peculiar and powerful medium, based on an inherent rhetoric of the image capable of influencing the viewers. This article conceptualizes and problematizes such power of the image, addressing to a critical and reflexive perspective on the visual rhetoric language of photography. Following a theoretical and conceptual approach in the framework of a philosophy of photography, the purpose of this article is a) to argue the relevance and the practical and social effects of visual rhetoric and its relation to press photographs, i.e. understand visual rhetoric applied to photographic images in journalism; and b) to understand the repercussions of this approach on visual communication to the relevant and emergent perspective of a philosophy of photography, when the cultures are more and more visual in a civilization of the image, which is mixed with the social phenomenon of misinformation in a digital age.
Keywords: image, interpretation, philosophy of photography, photojournalism, rhetoric of the image.